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Psycho: The Lost Ed Gein Tapes is a chilling 4-part docuseries that dives deep into the twisted psyche of Ed Gein—the real-life inspiration behind horror legends like Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Buffalo Bill (Silence of the Lambs).
In this series, we explore Gein’s disturbing crimes through rare archival audio, interviews, and dramatizations. We also connect the dots to Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story, starring Charlie Hunnam, and examine how Hollywood transformed Gein’s grotesque reality into cinematic terror.
🎥 Whether you're a true crime junkie or a horror film fanatic, this series uncovers the terrifying truth behind the myths.
👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more deep dives into the minds that shaped horror history.
Transcript
00:00You
00:30For this small Wisconsin community of under 700 persons,
00:5510 years of trying to forget have been wiped away
00:59in a single day.
01:01The return of the name of Ed Gein means return of memories,
01:07memories that many have been trying to forget.
01:10In 1957, this small-town Wisconsin horror story
01:15was being exposed to the world.
01:18Ed Gein, he's the first well-known American serial killer,
01:21but it's the fact that he repurposed people's bodies,
01:25and that's what's so upsetting about him.
01:29Ed Gein has been going to graves and picking up excavating bodies.
01:40He took skin and fashioned lampshades with it
01:44and upholstery on his chair and couch.
01:47I've never had a case where a person wanted to wear somebody else's skin.
01:52I don't think I ever heard of a case like that in the annals of crime.
01:56It might be satisfying to defile dead bodies,
02:00but there's nothing more powerful than killing someone.
02:07It's like he ran out of bodies, so he decided to create his own.
02:11I've never heard Gein's voice,
02:19so to now actually encounter this incredible piece
02:25of first-hand evidence is astonishing to me.
02:28It's the only known recording of Ed Gein.
02:31That's incredible.
02:33Oh, that's awesome.
02:33Yes!
02:34Yes!
02:35Yes!
02:36I mean, no one knew of the existence of this tape.
02:39We've been debating for years, like, what did Ed Gein sound like?
02:42I have been playing Ed Gein in my brain for so long.
02:46I don't know what to expect.
02:48Who helped you when you got him out of the red?
02:52Silver.
02:53Officer just told him that they found him more heads up there.
02:58What did you intend to do with that body?
03:02What would you do with the head?
03:05That must have been taken from reading about these magazines
03:10and everything, taken the flesh off like a headhunter.
03:15I mean, this casts a whole new light on the Gein case.
03:25For a researcher, we're always looking for data
03:29that gets us closer to the phenomenon.
03:31He knows there are things he can't tell the police.
03:36What would you do with the sexual part?
03:38That would end.
03:41One was painted, they said.
03:42The term serial killer doesn't come out
03:45for another 20, 30 years after Ed Gein was caught.
03:51I think it's why people adopt some of the details for movies.
03:57Gein was so enmeshed with his mother
03:59that he wanted to become his mother.
04:02Ed Gein was Norman Bates, and Norman Bates was Ed Gein.
04:06The comparison between the two of them was so right on.
04:12Well, a boy's best friend is his mother.
04:16You would take the heads off?
04:24Yes.
04:25Would you enjoy it while you were doing it?
04:29That's the worst part that I really didn't plan.
04:32Do you think he realized that the Seren Champions North opened now?
04:40Down the road.
04:42Touchdown through the assault by Jeff Graham now with Beth De Leon.
04:44That's appear to be a reporter for a呀 million.
04:45Yeah.
04:49Go to Brown Columbia.
04:52I've always been interested in monsters.
05:17I had actually been working on a book about horror movies.
05:22It was then that I discovered that both Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre had been inspired
05:29by Ed Gein.
05:33I wrote the book Deviant, which I consider the definitive biography of Ed Gein.
05:40I'd never heard Gein's voice.
05:45There are some kind of newsreel images of Gein.
05:49One when he was arrested and one at his trial, but you don't hear Gein's voice.
05:56So to now actually encounter this incredible piece of first-hand evidence is astonishing
06:05to me.
06:07Eddi is such a mythic figure.
06:09Hearing this actual human voice, it just makes these crimes that much more real.
06:21And now, we want to get this all straightened out.
06:37Lean back.
06:40What did you intend to do with their body, Mr. Boydance?
06:56that, uh...
06:57Well, you kind of thought you were there, honey.
07:00That's the way it could be.
07:03Curtain from the square foot.
07:08Well, there you go.
07:13...
07:21On this particular day, pretty much the entire male population, as well as some of the female
07:46population of Plainfield, was out in the woods.
07:52It was the first day of deer hunting season.
08:05Frank Wharton, who runs the hardware store with his mother, Bernice Wharton, returns from
08:11a day of deer hunting.
08:13As soon as Frank enters a store, he's stunned to see a trail of blood leading from the sales
08:22counter out through the back.
08:27He also spots some .22 caliber shell casings on the floor.
08:34He runs to the cash register and he notices that there's a receipt made out for some antifreeze.
08:41Frank Wharton had been in the store the previous day.
08:51Ed Gein came in asking about the price of antifreeze and also what Frank regarded as pestering
09:00Bernice sort of floating the idea of their going out on a date, roller skating.
09:10So immediately Frank Wharton suspects that Gein is somehow involved.
09:17So immediately Frank Wharton suspects that Gein is somehow involved.
09:24Eddie Gein was generally seen in the afterwards, but I couldn't find it.
09:31Eddie Gein was generally seen in the back of my life.
09:34She said, no.
09:35She said, no.
09:36I said, well, I just think to have somebody to go with me to hold me up because I've never
09:37ever seen in my life be there.
09:38Eddie Gein was generally seen as kind of an oddball.
09:57People saw him as somewhat simple-minded, completely harmless.
10:01Frank Wharton immediately notifies Sheriff Schley and Schley and a deputy
10:31proceed directly to the farmhouse.
10:48They approach the house, Eddie's not home, and they go around to the woodshed.
10:52Well, I haven't been out to your place at all.
10:59I don't know anything about your place.
11:00There's a woodshed right next to the house?
11:01That would be west.
11:02Is it attached to the house?
11:03That's right.
11:04The door going from the woodshed into the house.
11:05That's right.
11:06The door going from the woodshed into the house.
11:07That's right.
11:08There are no lights.
11:13They enter the shed completely dark.
11:20Suddenly, they're confronted with this absolutely appalling sight.
11:27Bernice Wharton's naked corpse strung up by her heels.
11:34Well, I don't know if this is more of them.
11:35I don't know if this is more of them.
11:36Well, I don't know if this is more of them.
11:37Not how will I see?
11:38Not how will I see?
11:46I don't know if this is more of them.
11:52How will I see?
11:57Bernice Wharton, this grandmother,
12:23her naked body is strung up from the rafters.
12:27She's been split open entirely, completely eviscerated.
12:32Her head has been cut off and is nowhere to be seen.
12:36You know, she's up there like some game animal
12:39that's been dressed out after the kill.
12:42What did you intend to do with her body?
12:45She warned me.
12:48A few years ago, when I was going to go deer hunting,
12:52did they experiment with me, you know?
12:54Mm-hmm.
12:59I put that up and was going to go deer hunting.
13:01That's what she was hanging from.
13:04I'm looking at the official autopsy report on Bernice Wharton's body.
13:11It reads in part, the body of a murdered and mutilated woman,
13:16Mrs. Bernice Wharton, has been found in the woodshed
13:20of the old Gein farmhouse.
13:22The body had been found hanging by the heels from the roof bars,
13:29decapitated and eviscerated.
13:31Head and viscera had been found in the same location,
13:35the vulva in a box, and the heart in a plastic bag.
13:50So after Shelley and his deputy kind of collect themselves a little bit,
13:58they go back and they're able to enter the house through the shed,
14:02which adjoins the house.
14:04And immediately, uh, they start stumbling on these other,
14:11uh, utterly horrific, utterly nightmarish sites.
14:16On last podcast on the left, we like to, what we call, defang the monster.
14:37But somebody like Ed Gein, whose sheer, for lack of a better word,
14:43playfulness of his crimes and what he was like as a person,
14:47mixed with what he actually did, is extremely unique.
14:51If you see in his house, too, like, truly,
14:54it's an exteriorization of his own mind.
15:04Meanwhile, Ed has been located at the home of this neighbor of his,
15:09and they take Gein into custody.
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15:36What happened?
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15:38and you don't know,
15:40I'll understand whether succeeds
15:41Well, then, what kind of a knife did you?
15:48Well, uh, I made that for my firearms.
15:54You know, it was a lot of making knives from firearms.
15:58Well.
16:00I had a knife, a random gun.
16:04Put a good edge on it?
16:05Yeah.
16:06You buying it yourself?
16:07Yeah.
16:08Good hard steel.
16:09Just went to prison.
16:11Well, it has to be.
16:12And I made that.
16:14No idea what I'm going to do this program.
16:39Good night.
16:43Good night, dear.
16:45Ed Gein.
17:15There's been so much out there about him in popular media.
17:20For a researcher, it's, you know,
17:22we're always looking for data
17:24that gets us closer to the phenomenon.
17:26I wanted to hear the man himself.
17:34Most serial killers that we know of,
17:36at least through the history of serial killing,
17:38are quite aware of what they're doing
17:40and are very intentional in their actions
17:43and just show no remorse.
17:46For us as social and behavioral scientists,
17:50we can guess at their motivations
17:52and the things that are driving them
17:54to commit violent crimes,
17:56but usually the words coming from the mouths
17:59of the people themselves are the best source.
18:13What would you do with the sexual part?
18:16I wouldn't enjoy it or anything.
18:19Would you enjoy it while you're doing it?
18:22My immediate reaction to listening to Gein
18:26is that he displays little or no emotion.
18:30He's being interviewed for the very first time
18:36about years of behavior that's quite bizarre and ghoulish.
18:43And you have to imagine
18:45that this guy's been living inside his head
18:48for a lot of years.
18:51He wasn't being overly defensive,
18:53and he wasn't being really angry.
18:55He wasn't acting annoyed.
18:58I mean, it's almost like this was a non-event,
19:03which is kind of interesting,
19:05given the time period that this whole thing took place.
19:10I think we have to remember this was like in the 1950s.
19:29This was a time when there was a kind of idyllic notion
19:34of the American family.
19:36You work hard, you have like a house with a picket fence,
19:39and two kids and that kind of thing.
19:42Ed Gein's arrest must have been a massive shock
19:46to the American psyche and to the world
19:48because it disrupts this picture.
19:51He's a kind of meek, unremarkable man
19:55who could have been your neighbor.
19:57And there's something eerie about that
19:59that is disruptive to our collective ideas
20:02of what is a monster.
20:09Ed was born when his parents were living in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
20:19They were owners of a small kind of general store.
20:23He was the second child born to the family.
20:26We know very little about Ed Gein's older brother, Henry.
20:31Ed Gein's older brother, Henry.
20:36From what we know and what we gather,
20:38George Gein was a somewhat feckless, unreliable individual.
20:46He was also evidently an alcoholic.
20:50George Gein, his life began in tragedy.
20:54It's like, it's Ed Gein's entire upbringing
20:58from, you know, 40 years before he was born.
21:01It's like it was ordained.
21:03George Gein coming to Wisconsin,
21:06his entire family dies crossing a river,
21:09and he was adopted by a different family.
21:12He is in no way whatsoever wanted,
21:14and then, of course, becomes a drunk.
21:17Having a father that's an alcoholic,
21:24when he's drunk,
21:26who's prone to violence,
21:28is a rough spot to be in.
21:30Well, for anyone,
21:31but particularly in a place where
21:34there's little or no likelihood of being rescued.
21:38that abuse can later on manifest
21:48in so many different ways.
21:50One can only guess at what
21:52some of the escapist fantasies might have been
21:55for this guy.
21:57His mother was the, uh,
22:00the better of two choices, obviously.
22:03Even if she were somewhat aloof or cold,
22:07might have been overly controlling.
22:11From all available evidence,
22:14Augusta had been raised
22:16in a very, very stern, strict,
22:20Lutheran household.
22:23In many ways, she fits the model
22:25of a classic kind of religious fanatic,
22:28uh, who is obsessed with the evils
22:32of the sins of the flesh.
22:35The lips of a strange woman drip honey,
22:41and her mouth is smoother than oil.
22:46Ed was subjected throughout his childhood,
22:49uh, to Augusta's harangues
22:52about the evils of womanhood
22:54and the decadence and corruption
22:57of the modern world,
22:59and all the evil temptations, uh,
23:02that Ed might be exposed to.
23:05You cannot hide behind your beauty.
23:09Your beauty has made you evil.
23:12Augusta, she was a harrowing influence on Ed Gein.
23:18Ed Gein, he grew up under the shadow
23:22of his mother's fanaticism.
23:25So I think he probably had this very paradoxical relationship
23:28to his mom where, on one hand,
23:30she was the source of everything,
23:32his life, his sense of right and wrong,
23:35um, but on the other hand, felt resentful.
23:38Ed was a very extreme pathological form
23:44of what used to be called a mama's boy.
23:47Augusta was a saint, um, who could do no wrong.
23:52Whenever he spoke about her after his arrest,
23:56uh, he would, he would burst into tears.
23:59When you have someone who's, uh, chronologically an adult male,
24:04but yet they're, they're, they're psychologically fused,
24:08uh, with their mother,
24:11the worst-case scenario is a kind of, uh,
24:16psychological incest.
24:19Uh, uh, you know,
24:21how did they, they come to be so close,
24:24and why was he unable to extricate himself?
24:28From this relationship.
24:33This was the only person
24:35that he had any enduring contact with.
24:39So if there's any intimacy in his life,
24:42it was with his mother.
24:44And by that I mean, of course,
24:46emotional or psychological intimacy.
24:48Now, we don't know if there was any physical
24:51or sexual intimacy,
24:53but it can't be ruled out.
24:58When you want to understand this type of psychopathology
25:03that is so strong and so deviant,
25:05it's not just a result of poor parenting.
25:08He hated his mother, his mother did this to him,
25:11his mother did that to him.
25:12This is much, much deeper than that.
25:14There's so many people that are brought up
25:17in all of these bizarre sorts of ways.
25:19Almost none of them go out and do what Gein did.
25:23Some people have described Augusta
25:25as being a rigid Christian woman
25:29who sees sex as sinful,
25:31and women as sinful,
25:33and Gein was to promise his mother never to have sex with women,
25:36stay by yourself.
25:37Everyone's a bad, bad person.
25:38That's not Christianity.
25:39That's mental illness.
25:40And I think the biggest component
25:43that Ed Gein got from his mother
25:46is some sort of mental disorder,
25:49not necessarily her poor parenting,
25:51which never helps,
25:53but there's some level of mental illness
25:55with the both of them.
25:57Augusta seemed to see wickedness
26:01and sinfulness all around her.
26:05She came to see La Crosse
26:08as kind of a Midwestern Sodom and Gomorrah.
26:13And so she finally persuaded her husband
26:17to move to Plainfield,
26:20this small farming community.
26:31It was a little town of farmers.
26:34There was no irrigation like there is now.
26:38It was what you call a poor community.
26:43Nobody was better or worse than the other guy
26:45who was all equal poor.
26:52When I first knew about Ed,
26:54see, I was only eight, nine years old is all it was,
26:56and he was just part of the group.
27:00But he was always pleasant,
27:02not troublesome or anything like that.
27:03I mean, he was just different.
27:05I don't know how to explain different,
27:06but he was just kind of different.
27:09I don't know how to explain it.
27:13I don't know how to explain it.
27:14But I mean,
27:15it wasn't just kind of different.
27:17We've got Bernice Wharton here.
27:47I had Augusta and Henry about 100 feet to my left down there.
27:56I think one of his victims is right behind us in the trees.
28:01My family came down from Quebec, Canada, and we lived in Wisconsin.
28:06Loved the weather, loved the people, good place to live and raise your family.
28:09It's right here.
28:11I was driving through Plainfield a couple times a week, and I noticed that hardware store,
28:17and I started reading the books on Ed Gein and really got obsessed with it.
28:20So I started researching it right after that, and wrote two books on it.
28:32Everybody say hi to Ed.
28:34This is it.
28:35Why is there no tubes going?
28:39Well it kept getting stolen.
28:42We've got George on the end, and we've got Augusta here, Ed's here, and Henry's on the
28:48end.
28:49A lot of people come under and visit Ed, and take some of his mother's tombstone apparently.
28:57There's a lot missing compared to the last time I was here.
29:00There's a lot of history within Plainfield is right there.
29:12April 1st of 1940, George died from basically drinking.
29:39He didn't do nothing, basically drink.
29:42So once he died, the boys started working more around town, earning money to support the
29:47family.
29:48So he wasn't really missed.
29:49So he wasn't going to have to worship, he was great.
29:57So this is true.
29:59We had to worship this well, so when we got thePS, it was a law that's right.
30:02So that there's a lot of people going to worship.
30:04So we can not hear that.
30:06So we can't even hear that.
30:09It can also be the national party.
30:12The state of Russia is a wily the national party.
30:14Henry had to go down for the draft in 42.
30:23The first number drawn by the Secretary of War
30:27is serial number 158.
30:35Henry got rejected because he's too old.
30:39Henry seems to have been the more, let's say,
30:42well-adjusted of the two,
30:45though it wouldn't be hard to be more well-adjusted than Ed Gein.
30:52Henry kind of saw Augusta for what she was,
30:57and he wasn't going to let himself be totally dominated by her
31:03in the way Ed did.
31:05There's some evidence that he,
31:08you know, was trying a little bit to wean his younger brother
31:16away from Augusta's influence.
31:23It's not like Henry Gein was the normal brother
31:26who would have been just fine had he moved to Milwaukee.
31:31Henry Gein actually kind of creeps me out almost more than Ed,
31:34because it's like, Henry, you could have gotten the fuck out of there
31:38if you wanted to,
31:39where it's just been like, Ed is obviously mixed a little different.
31:43These guys are spending many nights on the front porch,
31:46you know, sitting in front of their mother,
31:48her reading them sections from the Bible,
31:51and Henry at this point, he wants to get away.
31:53Ed's brother might have been urging Ed to leave,
31:57talking about how terrible Mother was.
32:02Maybe he couldn't tolerate it.
32:03Maybe he found that so offensive.
32:07And maybe, maybe he was jealous
32:09of his brother's ability to break away.
32:13They're in their early 40s at this time,
32:16and Henry, for the first time, brings up to his brother,
32:20I think maybe you're a little too close to Mom.
32:22Ooh, don't do that.
32:24That's good.
32:24I can understand the older brother saying,
32:29well, this really isn't a place I want to wind up staying.
32:34Whereas Ed just couldn't, so he was stuck.
32:38It's kind of like being psychologically enslaved,
32:40you know, like, no one physically tied him to a chair,
32:44but he was kind of psychologically tied to the chair.
32:48Later on in his life, Henry actually found a girl
32:54that he wanted to move in with,
32:55and yet she actually had a child of her own,
32:59and that was, I guess, everything Augusta taught him.
33:01And I think that's what happened when he died,
33:04the reason why he died, because Ed got upset.
33:07This is a newspaper article
33:33from May 19th, 1944.
33:37Funeral services were held here this afternoon
33:42for Henry Gein, 42, town of Plainfield, farmer,
33:47who died of a heart attack
33:48while trying to protect his farm
33:51from the ravages of a grass and brush fire.
33:54And the evening, several hours after the search began,
33:59found the dead body of Mr. Gein, lying face down.
34:04Apparently, the man had been dead for some time
34:07when he was found,
34:08and it appeared that death was the result of a heart attack.
34:13It was a normal farm and afternoon
34:23when Ed Gein and his brother Henry
34:26were out in a field burning brush.
34:29Supposedly, Ed was separated from his brother,
34:32and Ed ran back to town.
34:34Ed ran back to town, said he couldn't find his brother.
34:54And the police came out, and Ed led him
34:55right to where Henry was laying face down in the grass,
34:58and there was a bump on the back of his head.
35:00And so they basically ruled that he died of asphyxiation,
35:05and the police stopped investigating.
35:08Such accidents were not uncommon,
35:11because when you start a brush fire,
35:13you know, there's a great deal of smoke involved,
35:16and there have been other people
35:17who had died of smoke inhalation.
35:20All I heard is that they thought
35:22that Ed had maybe murdered his brother,
35:26but we don't know that.
35:27I don't know, heard that he was jealous of his brother.
35:32Don't know that either.
35:33Ultimately, we'll never know,
35:35and only Ed Gein would know.
35:39But the circumstances of the case,
35:41and when we look at his life history,
35:43and the intense attachment that he had to his mother,
35:47you could come up with a very plausible explanation
35:49that he wanted to have his mother to himself.
35:58We all know he did it.
36:00Shortly after Henry died,
36:14Augusta suffered a stroke,
36:17and suddenly Ed found himself taking care of his mother.
36:23Ed suddenly has a one-on-one relationship with his mother,
36:27this person who is his everything.
36:31Augusta had always been the one
36:33who had taken care of Ed.
36:35Now he found himself dressing her
36:38and feeding her, helping her.
36:41Augusta, she was bedridden,
36:43and Ed actually used to climb a bed with her
36:45and stroke her and stuff and caress her and that
36:47to make her happy, took care of her
36:49kind of the way he wanted it.
36:59Of course, Eddie was very, very devastated
37:02to see this woman,
37:04who he'd always regarded as godlike,
37:07suddenly reduced to this kind of state.
37:17End of time,
37:35We had no idea.
37:36We had no idea.
37:38We had no idea.
37:39What's that?
37:41The room was full of us,
37:44Augusta died on December 29th, 1945, a year after Henry.
37:54The descriptions they have of Ed Gein at her funeral,
37:59his face covered in snot, saying that she was too good for this world.
38:03Ed Gein was so obsessed with her and so ensconced in the world
38:07that she created for him that a fuse blew.
38:14Ed really only had one close relationship in his whole life.
38:21He wasn't close to his brother.
38:24He hated his father.
38:26You know, Augusta was his entire emotional world.
38:30And now she was gone.
38:33He was living in squalor.
38:34Once his mom is no longer around, he's left to his own devices.
38:39He feels this tremendous sense of loss and trauma,
38:42and he descends into this darkness.
38:45So from that point on, Ed really becomes obsessed
38:52with resurrecting his mother somehow.
38:56He went to her grave and prayed every night
39:10for her to rise from the grave.
39:12I mean, he would go night after night,
39:14please rise, please mother, please come back.
39:16These are Ed Gein's medical records, dated December 19th, 1957.
39:25It reads,
39:26After the death of his mother,
39:28he felt that he had a special power
39:29whereby he could raise the dead to life
39:31by an act of his willpower.
39:33I guess he couldn't tolerate the idea
39:38of being separated from his mother.
39:41Despite the fact she was dead,
39:43I guess the idea
39:44that he might be able to possess her corpse
39:49or her body
39:50would be a source of comfort for him.
39:52There could have been a part of him
40:01that was fearful of, you know,
40:05digging up his mother's corpse
40:06and realizing that that was, you know,
40:09a shell of his mother.
40:10It wasn't actually his mother anymore.
40:12It raises more questions.
40:15What were you planning to do with your mother?
40:18Like, were you going to stuff her
40:20and turn her into a doll?
40:22Was there some kind of a desire
40:24to physically be with his mother?
40:27And in that sense, I do mean sexually.
40:50I don't aynı 이초�ой men's daughter.
40:52I do not.
40:54I do not even believe she leapt
40:55in a life from her
40:59orfriend the body right in front of her
40:59or lingerie
41:03andi and dont SHE
41:05A flashback
41:06were Principle
41:07at people's perspectives
41:09with abusers
41:11like Witnesses
41:14and destroyingителей
41:16reality
41:16but
41:18and
41:18even
41:19How long ago did you start?
41:26Like I said, it might be four years.
41:29And this woman, four years since you've been into her grave, huh?
41:34That's right.
41:35What time of the year was this, uh, when you did this?
41:53Uh, any time.
41:55Any time.
42:01Drop for the ice.
42:05This is the grave site of Eleanor Adams.
42:11This is one of the graves that was actually exhumed a couple days after they caught Ed,
42:15and they got down to the casket to open it up, and it was empty.
42:19Well, which was the first grave that you wanted to?
42:24Adam.
42:25Did you know her?
42:28What, did you resign?
42:29Not really.
42:30No.
42:31Augusta's buried probably, I'd say, about 12 feet off from here.
42:38It's so close.
42:39I mean, very close.
42:43So mom would have been watching them.
42:44The other body served as proxies.
43:01You know, close to his mother, but not quite his mother.
43:04In Gein's case, he was following this.
43:13He knew when there was a funeral, he read about it in the paper,
43:16and would dig the corpse up almost the next day or that evening.
43:19Why?
43:20Because the dirt at that point would be very soft and would be easy to get out.
43:24Would you work all night at that, then?
43:38I do.
43:40What do you think you have?
43:41Definitely.
43:41That's right.
43:42Recent grave?
43:44That's right.
43:46Well, how would you know when to go to a cemetery?
43:51Well, I have to thank you, dear.
43:53You know, somebody died, and that's true.
43:58When the judge is sort of telling him and reviewing details with him in the case,
44:03he kind of goes along with the details and says,
44:06yeah, that's probably what happened.
44:09He's not denying it, but he's also not confessing to it.
44:13So I think he's sort of taking this kind of like passive approach to his role in this.
44:19He has been going to graves and digging up, excavating bodies, and using their body parts.
44:29That process, you know, is very difficult in its own ways.
44:33There's practical challenges that come with digging a body up that is typically buried six feet underground.
44:39Clearly he had a number of fantasies or ideas about what needed to be done with these bodies.
44:59I mean, there's a reason for digging up these graves and taking these women out.
45:06Someone doesn't wake up one day and say, I think I'll go out and start digging up bodies in a cemetery.
45:11No.
45:11This begins 10, 15, 20 years earlier in the offender's mind, in his fantasies.
45:18Now, sometimes fantasy serves as a substitute for action, but other times fantasy paves the way for later action.
45:27In Gein's case, it's pretty obvious that his fantasy was so strong, he actually acted it out and did it.
45:33There's a kind of fantasy life, and then there's actually the reality of like dealing with bodies that have decomposed very badly in the ground for sometimes years.
45:43How many graves did you open?
45:48Well, uh, and the, uh...
45:53Well, then you'd, uh, you'd cut the body as part?
45:56Well, uh, there's some I didn't really know.
46:04Never took home.
46:05That's right.
46:06Just opened up the...
46:08That's right.
46:08Cast it and...
46:10That's right.
46:11Cut them apart there.
46:12That's right.
46:13It's quite bizarre.
46:19I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:24He wanted the bodies, and he mutilated the bodies and desecrated the bodies, but what he did with the body parts is itself extraordinary.
46:32I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:33I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:34I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:34I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:35I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:35I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:36I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:37I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
46:37I mean, after all, how many bodies do you need?
47:08He would dig up these corpses and bring them back to his farmhouse and dissect them and fashion different artifacts out of the body parts.
47:25The word that people used over and over again after they discovered the house was revolting.
47:41And that to me was the perfect adjective for what was going on in there.
47:46I don't understand how you'd dig out the grave.
47:51Tell me how you'd do this.
47:53You would take the parts off and put her back in the coffin.
47:57Yes.
47:59Take the heads off.
48:00Take the heads off.
48:30Things like head hunting.
48:32Then how would you, what would you do with the head?
48:38That, uh, must have been taken from reading about these magazines and everything.
48:49Take him out.
48:50Like a head hunter.
48:52He would sit there and read, you know, these books, you know, these true crime books, true crime magazines.
49:00Just eating beans.
49:01Eating beans, reading about Nazis making lampshades out of human skin.
49:05These acts seem to have been modeled to some extent on the Nazi atrocities that were coming to light and being published in these pulp magazines.
49:20For a guy like Ed, discovering photographs or newsreels from World War II, maybe he couldn't imagine that before he saw it.
49:35In the Gein case, he took skin and fashioned lampshades with it and upholstery on his chair and couch.
49:50The fact is, you see all the bodies piled up and you see people as disposable.
49:58You understand the people who are experimented with.
50:01If you're inclined emotionally, psychologically, to that type of thinking, even if you don't want to admit it, it grabs your attention in sort of the wrong way.
50:22There was apparently a belt he made out of, um, nipples.
50:28It was this totally nightmarish environment.
50:31I think the notion of using the human flesh or skin to make objects or to upholster a chair or something like that is kind of peculiar.
50:47Almost suggests to me that you are finding comfort and that these skulls are keeping you company.
50:55And that you're so disturbed that you feel that you're surrounded by people.
51:00Gine is in disinterring bodies because he's lonely and has nobody to talk to.
51:14This is very perverse behavior and the level of his disturbance goes really to the core of his personality and to the core of his sexual dynamics.
51:24The sexual instinct itself is very, very strong, but the sexual instinct itself is complicated.
51:47You know, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, and, and there can be perverse sexual arousal patterns.
51:53Look what he's creating items from.
51:55Most of it's genitals and, and, and vaginas and nipples and these sorts of things.
52:00When Gine looks at what he did and he sees the heads all over the place, this is very arousing to him.
52:20This is very stimulating to him because look at the domination he has over these people.
52:26He can cut him up, he can, uh, desecrate him in all these various ways.
52:31He has total domination.
52:32That is very, very arousing for somebody like Gine.
52:37He is on record saying that he didn't have sexual relations with corpses.
52:44This may come as a shock to people.
52:46Criminal defendants don't always tell the truth.
52:48They lie all the time.
52:50So you really can't go by what Gine said.
52:53When you look at his behavior, notwithstanding his denial that he had sex with the bodies, is he capable of it?
53:00Obviously he's capable of it.
53:02Look, look exactly what he did.
53:09There were these rumors that he was accountable.
53:11In the Gine case, when the police entered the home, they saw a human heart in a frying pan on his stove.
53:27Now, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to raise the question, what's he doing with a human heart and a frying pan on his stove?
53:33I mean, did he eat some of the body parts?
53:36Um, that's not unheard of.
53:38Could he have eaten some of the victims?
53:41Their answer is, obviously he's capable of it.
53:43There's very little that Gine is not capable of.
53:51Would you enjoy it while you were doing it?
53:54That's the worst part of it.
53:55I really didn't care.
53:58I knew better, like, you know, like, restless.
54:02Would you say it's to my own mom?
54:08What was it?
54:09I know.
54:22That's the worst part of it.
54:23I mean, I didn't care.
54:25I mean, I'm sure it's righteous.
54:26I mean, I've been hearing it because I'm not sure it's a bad one.
54:28I mean, he's so good.
54:30I mean, I can't figure it out.
54:30But he's very good.
54:31But he's so good.
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